


The Needles of Paranoia

by redfiona



Category: TNA wrestling
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25976587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redfiona/pseuds/redfiona
Summary: With their masks, there's no telling who is a member of Aces 'n' Eights.  After all the things he's done, no one trusts that Storm isn't a member, but then again, he can't trust anyone either.
Kudos: 3





	The Needles of Paranoia

**Author's Note:**

> Set February 2013ish, so Aces 'n' Eights are very much present and attacking people, but some members, including the leader, are still unidentified.

Storm's locker is right in the corner of the locker-room. It's a hangover from back in the day, several hangovers ago, when he and Harris were just starting out in TNA. Newbies always got the worst lockers, and theirs was way in the back. Getting to it involved fighting past Jarrett's guitars and the Harris twins's kit. Now it's different people's kit and props but he never much felt like changing his locker, not when him and Harris got successful, not when he and Bobby were just as successful, not that all too brief time when he was World Champion, not now.

It's not sentimentality, though he knows his thinking's often riddled with it, not entirely. There's is some, this locker's stayed with him when everything else has changed, but there's practicality too. It's hard to sneak up on him when he's at his locker, because you've got to clear through everyone else's stuff first, which not a quiet process. Right now, he needs that extra security.

He needs it because there's two sets of people out to get him. Aces 'n' Eights, because that's what they do. He doesn't like them, or respect them, but he'd be a fool not to prepare for it. And he's not a fool, 'least, not that kind.

Then there's everyone else, because they think he's Aces 'n' Eights club leader. Thinking that, they might well take the opportunity to take him out before he can take them out, or order it.

Looking at it calmly, he gets it. Aces 'n' Eights, they play cards and they drink beer - his coat's got cards on, one of his old ones even had the dead man's hand, and hell, everyone knows he likes his beer. If he prefers his horsepower four-legged, it wouldn't stop him from liking motorcycles too. He doesn't, they're noisy, dirty, dangerous things, and he wants nothing to do with them, but it ain't a leap for people to think he might.

But even if he did like motorbikes, bikes, beers and five card stud didn't mean he was one of them, and he doesn't know why that's so hard for everyone else to understand.

Fear maybe; because of the masks, anyone could be one of Aces 'n' Eights. Any one of those pricks could be any of them. It made you twitchy. Hell, Storm admits he's nearly leapt out of his skin a couple of times recently when people have come in the locker room without knocking. The constant grind of fear is getting to everyone, making them twitchy, so scared they're seeing bikers behind every face. Maybe he's the only one who can know for sure that he's not one of Aces 'n' Eights, but he'd like to think the other guys have known him long enough to at least give him the benefit of the doubt.

Then again, what do they see when they look at him? They see the cards, and the ones he plays aren't always the ones he's dealt. They see the beer bottles, and how he's used them. They see a man who's never quite made it on his own. A man like that might be tempted to form a gang, hide his inadequacies in a crowd of bodies. Looking at it that way, he can see why they think he could be in Aces 'n' Eights. Looking at it that way, he ought to be flattered that they think he's the leader, not just one of his flunkies.

Maybe he doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. Maybe none of them do, after all the things they've done to each other.

But what can you do in a situation like this, where Aces 'n' Eights could be anyone and you've got to stand up to them? It needs a team to defeat them, and teams need trust, and no-one has any of that. There ain't a great many good options, but Storm's got to make the best of it. He's got to hope Sting isn't one them, which he probably isn't - Sting likes motorbikes, but not beer and cards, more than that, he's Sting and some gullible part of Storm doesn't think Sting would have anything to do with Aces 'n' Eights. Years of ... everything still haven't quite killed off that gullible part.

Because of that gullible part, Storm's got to trust a man with famously poor judgement of character when Sting says he believed that neither of Magnus or Joe were part of Aces 'n' Eights? Joe, Storm didn't know well enough to comment. Sure, he hadn't seen anyone in Aces 'n' Eights who looked like Joe, but they could have been keeping him out of the way so as not to tip their hand beforetimes. It's what he'd have done in their place - that kind of thinking probably didn’t help his claims that he wasn’t in the gang. Storm knew even less about Magnus, other than he was British and ambitious. It wasn’t exactly testimony of good character.

Eric, he's reasonably sure of. Eric who he's hit with beer bottles and handcuffed to rings. Eric who's been part of a five-on-one beatdown of him and hit him with more hockey sticks than Storm can remember. But despite that, maybe because of it, he knows that Eric wouldn't join Aces 'n' Eights. Crazy Eric is the one other person in the company he can say that about. Not Bobby, not anyone else, just Eric. A whole lot of mistakes have lead Storm here, and he knows it.

People don't trust him, and he hasn't got anyone he can trust, and his choices are why. Maybe he's sorry about parts of that, but not sorry enough to change. He's gonna put his coat on and grab his hat, and go out there and kick Aces 'n' Eights ass. Not because he likes anyone here, or because they like him, the present situation has shown that ain't true in either direction, but because it's his company, and if anyone is going to be smacking people around, it's gonna be him.  



End file.
